


from eden

by magicboxofoddities



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Alive!Skulduggery, Dimension Travel, F/M, Rating and warnings may change later on, Yearning, i wanna say 'hurt and comfort' but i'm not sure how much comfort there will be, in a way at least, vague ending planned but let's see if/how we get there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-01-16 17:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicboxofoddities/pseuds/magicboxofoddities
Summary: The first thing he sees when his eyes have adjusted to the light is a man standing there – red hair down to the naked shoulders, slightly curled. Freckled face, grimacing. A scar stretching up from his lower abdomen, under his arm, down to his side.His fist strikes the mirror before he’s even properly comprehended the whole picture.(Post LSODM AU – Valkyrie disappeared in the Temple of the Brides of Blood Tears. After her performance at the Battle of Roarhaven, they can’t find Darquesse, either. Time passes and extreme measures are taken.)





	1. there's something tragic about you, something so magic about you

**Author's Note:**

> (rolls out of a trash can like an over-fed raccoon)
> 
> i don’t own anything; the only thing we take from phase 2 is terminology and a vague sense of dissatisfaction, then we’re never touching it again; this is (obviously) AU; we’re going batty with the bits we have as the law of the wild demands. i wrote this all by me lonesome in the middle of the night. i don’t have beta-readers or the influence of a higher being telling me to shut up. this is self-indulgent garbage. you have been warned.

> **iii.**
> 
> He wakes up with a start, gasping for a breath he thought he doesn’t need. There’s a pulsing sensation – leftover energy from the shunt? His consciousness, dissolving? The world slowly falling apart? It’s rhythmical, a steady beat, and it takes him longer than he would like to admit to realize it’s coming from his ribcage. When he feels for the cause, his fingers touch skin. _Odd_. He forces himself to think that, over and over again, to keep his mind from jumping to the obvious conclusion. _Must be the façade malfunctioning. Nothing else. Nothing worse._ Fingers, skin and nails, glide up to by now familiar spots on his collar bones, but nothing happens, nothing changes – the touch remains skin on skin. Panic surges through him, and there’s a faint feeling of dizziness, and Skulduggery realizes he hasn’t been breathing at all so he does, and the way his lungs fill with air, the way his chest rises as he does so, the way his throat burns is _painful_.
> 
> The sensations are overwhelming. His head is heavier; something, presumably hair, is tickling his shoulders. He feels lost in the darkness, not used to _eye_sight anymore, and the stitches pulling on his skin as he turns almost make him scream. The feeling of soft sheets against naked skin is so foreign, long forgotten, he barely recognizes it. The all-consuming throbbing in his chest makes it nearly impossible to focus on anything else as he struggles to get up and stumbles to the door – it even drowns out the soft breathing next to him, the rustle of the covers as someone turns around, as a hand stretches over, searching, finding nothing.
> 
> On instinct alone (he’s not sure _whose_ instinct), Skulduggery makes it out of the room, through the hallway, and into a bathroom. The lights are blinding, and he curses softly – then keeps on mumbling, because ridiculous as it is, hearing his own voice calms him at least somewhat. One thing that hasn’t changed, even if the light vibration of his vocal cords is unsettling. The first thing he sees when his eyes have adjusted to the light is a man standing there – red hair down to the naked shoulders, slightly curled. Freckled face, grimacing. A scar stretching up from his lower abdomen, under his arm, down to his side.
> 
> His fist strikes the mirror before he’s even properly comprehended the whole picture.
> 
> Shards, little pieces, get stuck in his fingers, his knuckles, the back of his hand. He’s fascinated by the blood, feels oddly detached from the painful sensation.
> 
> There’s a knock on the bathroom door.

* * *

**i.**

China has never bothered with knocking. There was a time when this would have set him on edge; by now there’s only a vague annoyance associated with her grand entrances, overshadowed by his ever-present anger. (_Exhaustion. Anxiety._ Not that he’d ever admit to any of these.) He doesn’t even spare her or her bodyguards a glance, instead keeps his skull decidedly trained at the board of notes in front of him, surveying the various post-its and clippings and documents that have long since taken up more wall-space than board-space in his otherwise sparsely furnished office. Besides the wall there’s a desk and an armchair he rarely uses. He doesn’t go back to his house much. He tried meditating in the Bentley, but when the empty space next to him became too noisy, he swore off rest unless absolutely necessary. After he almost crashed his precious car, the armchair was put in his office — curtesy of Saracen, according to the note, but he assumes China had something to do with it, because she’s the one complaining the least about his almost-constant presence at the Sanctuary.

It’s been five years, eight months, and thirteen days. He could tell it down to the hours, but that would discredit his already questionable sanity even further, so he keeps it to himself, as he does most things, these days. With the unspoken agreement that maybe, the Darquesse issue has resolved itself; _maybe_, it’s time to move on, slowly sinking into everyone around him, he doesn’t much see the point in discussion, anyway. To hell with them. He made a promise, and he’s not going to break it. After all, what are _five years_ to people like them?

Lucky for him, Ireland’s new Grand Mage owes him a rather grand favour. One she’s eager to repay, if just to stop him from hanging it over her head for the rest of her tenure. Apparently, the international sorcerer community isn’t looking all too kindly on her continued indulgence of his efforts to find and bring back a well-known mass murderer.

_To hell with them._

China gets his attention with a pristine, thin manila folder held by pristine, thin hands. He doubts there’s much in it besides a list of names; usually, he doesn’t need much more than that. Usually, it’s quite a useless list. Skulduggery doesn’t sigh, but his shoulders drop as he turns around to take it. He’s stunned for a moment by her smile, a smug edge to it that manages to get on his nerves more than her interruption. Before he can comment, however, she says: “I think I’ve found what we’ve been looking for.”

(Considering that, at this point, _he’s_ not even sure what they’re looking for _specifically_ to find who they’re looking for _in general_, that _does_ catch him by surprise.)

Skulduggery opens the folder under China’s watchful, expectant eyes. It’s the title of a book; he dimly remembers it was part of China’s collection before her original library was blown to pieces, because he researched some scrying techniques for Finbar to help with a case and it came up in conversation. At the time, it hadn’t been useful for the task at hand, because they were looking for things and not people and apparently there was quite a vast difference in methods, there, albeit equally complicated when the lost didn’t want to be found. He could see its value now, if they had it, but—

He turns the page and there’s a list of coordinates, oddly phrased, with brief notes to each detailing timelines and people. The third and last page is the expected short list of names, including two of which he recognizes as Dimension Shunters and three of well-known Sensitives. _Well._

By the look of her, China expects gratitude he is both unable and unwilling to give, but he thinks she can read it in tilt of his head, because she throws him a casual “You’re welcome,” before nodding to her guards and leaving him to his thoughts, now finally directed towards a real, proper, actual _plan_ again.

He’d breathe a sigh of relief, if he could.

He gets to work instead.

* * *

> **iv.**
> 
> Somewhere in the back of his head, a calmness originates, but his own consciousness is stronger as he slips into a fighting stance. Then a voice, soft, as familiar to him as his own. “Are you ok in there?”
> 
> Valkyrie.
> 
> He’s almost ripping the door from its hinges in his hurry to open it.
> 
> _Valkyrie_.
> 
> She stares up at him, dark eyes both confused and understanding at the same time. She reaches out, one hand coming to rest against his side on the unfamiliar scar (but _is it?_), the other wrapping around his chin, turning his head.
> 
> _Valkyrie. Valkyrie. Valkyrie._
> 
> He can’t speak, even as he wraps himself around her. She’s smaller than him, but not by much; she looks older than he remembers. Surprisingly, she also looks less tired, despite the time of night. There’s a difference in the way she holds herself, but he can’t even begin to contemplate the implications of that. The calmness overtakes him now, like something is slitting into place, but he’s faintly aware of a distant jealousy, as if this is right, but not quite, not for _him_ – he’s a stranger here, in this body, which used to be his and _is_, in another life.
> 
> _Another life._
> 
> Where Valkyrie is hugging him back and cracking jokes in the middle of the night as she wraps bandages around his scraped knuckles like it’s the most common thing in the world; like they’re doing this every day.
> 
> “Honestly,” she says, the disapproving tone a farce he sees through easily. “Maybe you’re not used to sleep, but _I_ am. At some point, you’re going to have to come around.” But she says it with a teasing smile, and he hums a laugh in response.
> 
> There’s another thought, humming behind his eyes like a blinding billboard message. _This is not yours to enjoy_. He ignores it, closes his eyes instead as she leads him back to the bedroom and settles down next to him. _This is not your peace_. He might despise his skin, but the anger is surprisingly subdued, only simmering quietly, when he traces her hand with his fingers; her hand that is on his chest, resting over his beating heart.
> 
> _Valkyrie. Valkyrie. Valkyrie._
> 
> She’s alive. In another universe, she’s alive and well and safe. With him.
> 
> The part of his consciousness that belongs to his alternate self sends a pang through his chest that feels like a protest, but just for a few moments, he forgets all thoughts of books and wars and apocalypses and _pretends_.

* * *

**ii.**

He brings the matter to Cassandra first, because he likes to think that after everything she’s seen Valkyrie and him through, she has both the most interest in helping him find his lost partner and the likeliest capability to actually be of use. They haven’t really kept in touch besides his quarterly check-ins for any new visions. It used to be weekly, then monthly; then, a particularly dark patch of radio-silence where he vaguely remembers requesting _input_ from a number of different Sensitives through more or less legal methods, also to no avail. They settled on a short, quarterly call, where she told him about a different kind of silence he stoically pretended not to worry about, not to _mean anything_.

She doesn’t seem surprised about the suggestion (_did she know about the possibility?_) but seems concerned about the _hope_ she seems to hear in his voice. He makes a note of it and tunes it down when he brings it up with Finbar, who agrees with the general premise of the plan, but also seems to doubt the concrete usefulness of it. (He’ll worry about the actual spell later; _baby steps_, for the sake of his fragile grip on his sanity.) It’s worth a shot; it has to be, because frankly, though he doesn’t like to admit it, he’s at his wits’ end.

The whole thing is rather brilliant in its simplicity, and just so stupidly easy in its conception, it might actually work. China is unwilling to just let him ravage through any dimension the shunters can find in search of the _grimoire de perdu et trouvé_, mainly because the mess they made in the Leibniz dimension had threatened to spill over in a rather spectacular way, and according to her and her yay-saying pretense council, they don’t need any more of that. So she has the shunters _discretely_ find a timeline in which her library is whole and healthy, and instead of stealing the book – something she’d undoubtably prefer if she wasn’t so sure her alternate self would kick up a fuss about it – he’s going to memorize the respective pages. China (and, to be quite honest, the majority of people he’s advertised this plan to) seems reluctant and vaguely concerned about sending him, in his current state, but she’s well aware that what without a physical brain to dictate him, he’s the best candidate, with his memory being as impeccable as it is.

(He can still perfectly recall the way Valkyrie would scoff at dignified self-praises such as these, even though it’s been years since he heard it.)

He doesn’t even technically need to leave their dimension to do that, which is probably why she allows it, and which is where the Sensitives come in. In a nutshell, the idea is that he’ll briefly possess himself, which should hypothetically be easier than possessing someone else. The implication of this technique, if it works the way his sources tell him it does, are perhaps something he should worry about, but as long as it serves his purpose, he decides to ignore the _who’s_ and _why’s_ and _who’s haunting whom why_. The process requires a significant amount of skill and manpower, even more so due to the universal barrier, which does prove somewhat of a problem.

Skulduggery manages to cajole one of the three other Sensitives on the list – a middle-aged Ukrainian sorcerer called Zir who specializes in the projection of consciousness and leads him on a three-day chase before he finally caught up to them – into at least looking into the project, for science. He may have withheld exactly _why_ he needs specific information from the book, but name-dropping China’s infamous collection and refraining from correcting assumptions isn’t strictly _lying_.

He _does_ utilize this assumption to sternly, but not overly _threateningly _(for his standards) convince the last of the listed Shunters. Vida De Los Santos is perhaps a bit pretentious, but she’s ambitious and discreet, which is a rare combination. She’s skilled, but she works on a need-to-know basis, doesn’t ask any questions besides _where to_, and leaves him be. Zir, on the other hand, immediately clicks with Finbar and Cassandra, and where the other two Sensitives have given up trying to dissuade Skulduggery, Zir is still insistent on worrying, warning, and generally putting a damper on his good mood. They begin to get on his nerves, truth be told, but they do have some valuable input – they work out the time frame, for a start. Where Cassandra cautions against any long-term projection for fear of losing some of his consciousness and Skulduggery wants to get enough time to fulfil his task in one go, Zir somehow calculates an interval they know they can handle and which both puts Cassandra at ease and pacifies Skulduggery’s temper.

The night before, Skulduggery manages to meditate successfully for more than two hours for the first time in months.

* * *

> **v.**
> 
> An alarm clock jerks him awake only a couple hours later, and he thinks he’s never had a dream while meditating before, but _no dreams_ was so much better than _this_ _dream_, and he feels like he’s going through the five stages of grief – except then he hears Valkyrie yell “fuck” as she propels the phone off the nightstand and suddenly there’s this soft, secure feeling again which he isn’t quite sure is his own. Sleep certainly is a disconcerting experience. (He thinks he’s going to miss it, and the thought is accompanied by something _spiteful_, and he thinks it’s not him thinking at all, which is even more unsettling.)
> 
> Valkyrie, phone in hand, sits back down on the bed, typing away with a sort of adorable urgency. He wants to put an arm around her waist but stops himself halfway up, a little shocked at the impulse, and grabs a pillow to fling at her back instead. He’s vaguely aware of feeling annoyed with himself, but it makes her laugh as she turns around and hurls the pillow at his face in retribution, then leans across his chest. He quite likes her there, he thinks, and smiles.
> 
> “You’re cheerful today.”
> 
> “It’s a good day, so far. What’s the time?”
> 
> She checks her phone again and sighs. “Half past we need to get up. _Now_. Your good day starts with what seems to be a triple homicide that needs looking at, I’m afraid,” she says, marking no inclination to move. He catches a glimpse at the clock as she drops the phone on the beside table, and he should be concerned that he slept away five whole hours, hours he should have spent searching for a very specific book, because he only has a limited amount of time here before Cassandra will pull his consciousness back to where she thinks it belongs. His alternate self seems to be _cheering_ at that, and it’s a surprisingly strong sensation.
> 
> “I’d say that makes for the best day, dear.”
> 
> She laughs like she’s happy (and _alive, alive, alive_) and when she leans in to kiss him, he lets it happen and loses himself in the long-forgotten sensations.


	2. there's something lonesome about you, something so wholesome about you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (haha what do u mean ‘yearly’ isn’t an acceptable update schedule)
> 
> thanks so much for the lovely comments – they really did motivate me a lot, i’m just busy and slow af. unfortunately i’m also an anti-social sloth who forgets to reply straight away and then feels too awkward to do so when i remember again days/weeks/months later, so you’ll have to content with this forced schmushy virtual group hug now. enjoy the dumpster dive, guys.

**i.**

“That’s one corpse alright,” Valkyrie says. “I think.”

But instead of the various bits of man in front of her she subtly eyes various bits of the man beside her. Skulduggery’s hand, gloved as usual, twitches slightly. It’s the newness of having nerves, she supposes, but it had already gotten better over the last couple of weeks, or so she’d thought. After the third broken coffee mug, Valkyrie caught him in the kitchen one night, apparently practicing to will his hands into stillness. As the effort had paid off (and the late-night training sessions stopped, as far as she could tell from the nights where she _wasn’t_ out like a light the moment her head finally hit the pillow), she hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe now that the newness has settled there is some sort of nervousness setting in, something triggered by his never-ending spiral of thoughts she would tentatively call anxiety if he hadn’t completely bailed at the suggestion of therapy the last time she brought it up, shortly after he was resurrected.

As Skulduggery circles the remains of the corpse, which is probably, hopefully, one of the men and not a mix of all three, he keeps stretching his leg … oddly. As if trying to shake a cramped muscle, almost. Getting used to the sensation. Which, fair. He has these, now, _muscles_. Cramps are the worst, and it serves him right to experience what he’d put her through after countless hours of training. It’s just weird to see him do it, Valkyrie reasons, which is _her_ problem; her problem with adjusting to this body, expressed through over-interpretation, and not _his_ problem; there is probably nothing exceptionally wrong – besides the usual – except–

He grins. At her more than lacklustre comment – not that she’d admit it, but truly, not her best work, even at eight thirty in the morning without so much as a coffee because she’s _still_ not allowed to have drinks in the Bentley even though he knows what it feels like, now – he _grins_.

He doesn’t tease. Doesn’t comment on her truly spectacular perception. Doesn’t even raise an eyebrow, a motion which – she also would never admit – she’s grown incredibly fond of in the short time since this has become a _thing_.

He grins, like it’s the most hilarious thing she has ever said. Could be an insult in itself, that, a new meta-level of insult he’s waiting for Valkyrie to _get_ and give him a smack for.

Valkyrie squints at his dapper-yet-oddly-nervous-almost-uncomfortable posture.

Something’s _off_.

* * *

> **ii.**
> 
> It’s weird, seeing Skulduggery this still. He’s unnervingly still at the best of times, and Stephanie never did quite get the hang of interpreting his miniscule tilts and twitches and quirks. Not that she has bothered to learn, mind; she doesn’t need to hang around someone who treats her with distanced silence at best and eloquently direct disdain at worst. The first months after Darquesse vanished had been the worst – when he was still fueled by some sort of desperate hope manifesting in almost eerie alertness at all times, and every call she got filled her with a sickening dread. Sometimes, when they thought they had a lead, his behavior towards her could even be interpreted as _nice_. More time passed, and the eerie alertness became clearly exhausted overcompensation, but he still made an effort to be polite to her, at least. It was creepy, in retrospection. Pathetic. (_Disappointing_.)
> 
> At the time, she’d thought, _maybe, _maybe he could see her– but, as she had later realized, this must’ve been pure calculation – she supposes he thought upsetting the person with the most ambition and the most promising weapon to kill his best friend probably wasn’t the best idea. Not that his treatment of her would have ever changed anything about her intentions.
> 
> Then he had dropped off the grid completely. While the remainder of the dead men were focused on finding _him_, Stephanie had started college. Her parents were thrilled – they had been worried about her taking a break and shutting herself up in Gordon’s old mansion to ‘think about her future’, but she’d visited as often as possible, and even now, they keep a tradition of weekly family dinners, so that’s all rolling smoothly and they’re still none the wiser about what else has been going on with their eldest daughter. She hasn’t spoken to Skulduggery ever since he reappeared, not even when he came up with this idiotic plan now, years after this entire problem should have stopped _being_ a problem. She isn’t even technically needed here, but then, how could she stay away when it’s her entire life on the line?
> 
> Stephanie has thought about her future, thoroughly. She knows what she wants it to be like. And she has absolutely no intention of putting it at risk for Skulduggery’s obsession with a girl who, all things considered, is probably dead. More than him, hopefully.
> 
> It’s shortly past the six-hour mark and Finbar has just arrived to swap in for Zir. They seem exhausted and concerned, and Stephanie has to suppress a smile as she hands them their tea. _Good_. If something doesn’t work out as planned, if Skulduggery gets lost somewhere over there or on the way or in his own head, even; it’ll save her a whole lot of trouble.
> 
> Something pops in her ear and Fletcher appears, holding a tray with cheap coffee from their favorite corner shop in one and Saracen’s elbow with the other hand. Saracen gives her a friendly bump on the shoulder, then hands one of the cups to Dexter, who has been sitting in a corner and brooding for the past few hours, while Fletcher reappears next to her, holding out one of the remaining two cups.
> 
> She smiles, and he smiles back, brightly, and as he starts quipping about how plain boring these world-saving, life-changing missions always are, it hits Stephanie again how much she has to lose.
> 
> Despite the initial suspicion, she’s a part of the team now; even though she’s barely here, even though she doesn’t fill the gap Valkyrie Cain left – in the past five years, these people have accepted her. Fletcher has assured her repeatedly that even when (if) they find Valkyrie (Darquesse), they’ll figure something out, they’ll make sure she can stay. He’d squeezed her hand as he said it, and kissed her goodbye for the first time that night.
> 
> Stephanie likes to think she’s a better person now. She’s a _person_, now, and she wants to be _better_. Better than Valkyrie Cain, at least. She wants to be the kind of girl Fletcher can love; she doesn’t want to kill anyone. She just wants to protect her family, her friends. And even if they don’t see it, if (when) it really comes down to it, she’ll be ready to do what has to be done. If Darquesse stays lost, fine; if she gets to make sure she and everyone she loves are finally safe – even better.
> 
> As if guessing her thoughts, Cassandra, who is monitoring Vida’s energy levels to assure she’ll be fit for the entire twelve-hour period, shoots her a look she doesn’t quite know how to take. The old hag seems to be the only one doubting Stephanie’s commitment to the plan; everyone else is convinced of her goodwill to work things out, even though her motives have been surprisingly unquestioned thus far. Maybe they’re just feeling awkward bringing it up with her, being suddenly reminded that once upon a time, she was relegated to a place _less than_. Maybe they can’t image any of this to work, either. Skulduggery might not make it back. He might not find the book. The spell might not work. There might not be a person to find, anymore. And the thought that calms her nerves the most, that makes a warmth spread through her chest: Maybe, just _maybe_, they don’t even want it to work.
> 
> With a content sigh that can be masked as concern, Stephanie holds Fletchers hand, shoulders relaxed, and smiles.

* * *

**iii.**

Valkyrie sits on the edge of the desk, holding an iced coffee in a to-go cup with a questionably manufactured lid. She wiggles to get a more comfortable seat, almost bumping into a stack of unquestionably priceless books, almost crumpling the edges of unquestionably important files. The liquid in her paper-cup slushes. China Sorrows doesn’t _wince_, would never subject her face to such undignified an expression – but by the way she glances at her, Valkyrie is sure China understands the implied threat. Valkyrie takes a sip, finally feeling a little more awake; a drop of coffee runs down the side of the cup. The bespectacled man appears to be having a nervous breakdown in the background.

China, returning the majority of her attention to Skulduggery, delivers her sentiments on their request with a finality she just _has_ to know will neither impress him nor change his mind. “I’m not sure how that particular book is going to be of any help in your current investigation, detective.”

She doesn’t outright say or show it, but Valkyrie assumes that after last year’s fallout with Scorn, China is a little uneasy about being alone with Skulduggery for extended periods of time. The only reason he’s been relatively calm about that entire ordeal is probably his abduction by Abyssinia shortly after, which may have put some things into perspective. It also can’t hurt that he knows he now has China’s entire library and information network at his private disposal, because she can’t really tell him no after … _that_. Valkyrie kind of misses the tentative friendship she had been building with China, but she gets to eat while doing research on the premises now, so she feels a little less bad about exploiting the moral high ground on that front.

“Hear about that, did you?”

“Dreadful situation.”

It really must be, for her. The book is in the vault, and apparently it’s also valuable enough to not just bring it up for a quick look, which means China has to personally accompany them downstairs. China shoots her a look Valkyrie would almost read as pleading, but she remembers the way something in Skulduggery’s posture had changed – snapped – when he found out about his family all those months ago, and how it hasn’t set back into place properly, yet – and refuses to give China an out.

“Indeed. And the fact that there are several body parts missing makes it ever more so.” Skulduggery, too, looks at Valkyrie as if expecting her to chime in; give China the final push she needs to be convinced.

The book with the unpronounceable French name he is so insistent on looking at is only helpful for finding _people_ and not _things_. Valkyrie knows, from a previous case with Finbar, that dead things, as in proper-dead-not-moving-and-thinking things, count as _things_ and not _people_, meaning the book is, indeed, useless for their current case. He knows this, and she thinks he can guess she knows, too, and yet he refused to come clean about why he’s been more focused on this book than the better part of three corpses since this morning, so she refuses to give him an out, either, and takes another sip of her coffee instead.

He has the decency to look vaguely annoyed at that, which is finally a normal reaction, but then he appears to be annoyed with _being annoyed_, and Valkyrie can see that China notices it too, now, that _something is off_.

“The _grimoire de perdu et trouvé_ is an instruction for finding _people_, not–” China halts, catching herself just in time, “– _dead_ people.”

Whatever _something_ is, Valkyrie is pretty sure Skulduggery wouldn’t want to unpack any of that in present company, so she decides to have mercy on him and hops off the table, dumping her empty cup in the trash can next to China’s desk on the go. “One of the guys might still be alive. Or at least parts of him might be. Those parts are what– _whom_ we’re hoping to find.”

China doesn’t seem convinced by the obvious lie, but reluctantly agrees to show them the parts of the book they need to see anyway. While China leads the way to the vault, Valkyrie follows more slowly, knowing Skulduggery will match her pace. He ignores her questioning look, though, the one that clearly states _tell me now, or else_, and has the nerve to laugh at her expression instead, sounding _happy_. _Content_. It’s right there on his face for all passers-by to see, and Valkyrie almost trips on the stairs in surprise, but then he does make fun of her for _that_, so she supposes it’s really just something odd his face does now, being _emotive_, and nothing more to worry about.

* * *

> **iv.**
> 
> Nerves truly don’t become her. China’s demeanour doesn’t change in the slightest, but it takes more effort to keep face than it should. (_Than it normally does_.) Her solution is to simply avoid the source of it as much as she can – her presence isn’t needed for this experiment, anyway, not really. She doesn’t care for updates or deliberations or worse, _small talk_; she cares about results, which they will only receive at the very end of these twelve long, painful hours.
> 
> Albeit uncomfortable, their start in the middle of the night was deliberate; Zir had advised a buffer of a few hours for adjustment to assure Skulduggery’s consciousness has truly settled before putting it under any kind of mental or emotional strain. To prevent double-minds (ironically), or any other situation that might shake him loose before Vida can make sure he ends up back where he belongs. It’s a delicate process China will study and further examine in detail – once its success has been established.
> 
> At worst, Skulduggery will get lost somehow – but this is too important to him to misstep, so she knows she can trust him to try in earnest, no distractions. At best, this method works so absolutely smoothly she can use it to regain access to her library, completely unobserved from the other side and such without the pesky liability of stealing from herself.
> 
> Hundreds upon hundreds of priceless, irreplaceable books with priceless, irreplaceable knowledge. Knowledge she alone in this universe will be privy to. A nice side effect, to be certain. Until they figure out a way around the barrier of actually transporting the information here without relying on something as flimsy as human memory, China is sure Skulduggery could be compelled to redo the trip a few times. After all, if they find a way to locate Darquesse there, it is just as likely they could find a way to help liberate Valkyrie, too. She can think of a couple useful works, top of her head. The fact she has long since perfected her soul catcher project for just this occasion is something he doesn’t need to know just quite yet; China is certain he will appreciate the surprise when the time comes, _if_ the time comes.
> 
> She does hope so, as sincerely as she can admit to. For one, a happy Skulduggery is less of a threat to her and the rest of the world at large, and she can’t deny the last few years have been … _worrying_. She supposes she misses Valkyrie, too, just a little; her barbs and remarks did lighten up boring and pretentious meetings, and she _did_ do much better for conversation than the idiots currently running the Sanctuary’s crime department. Of course, she would also greatly appreciate the certainty of not having a worldbreaker on the loose, if just for closure and the comfort of the international magical community hounding her about it, but after five years of barely any activity at all, that’s more of a side-concern, really.
> 
> In the beginning, everyone had expected this to go relatively quickly – either they’d find a way to kill Darquesse, or Darquesse would destroy the world sooner rather than later, if the Sensitives’ visions could be believed. Having only met her briefly, China couldn’t say much about the state of mind the girl was in, but she did have a feeling that they wouldn’t get off that easily. Whatever Darquesse had planned for them (if she did have anything planned at the time) wouldn’t be something quick and painless. China could imagine she’d like to take her time, with that kind of power.
> 
> A couple of missing books (on old, strange magic), missing people (mostly old, strange scientists) and entire missing sorcerer towns (with old, strange histories) pointed to Darquesse, but never amounted to much more than information on where she _had_ been, not where she _would_ be. Then the frequency of the visions dropped, although not enough to be of concern (to Skulduggery) or relief (to everyone else). After Sanguine and Low turned up dead, with what appeared to be the remnants of the destroyed godkiller weapons placed next to their remains in a very decided manner, the noise around Darquesse died down. Completely. No cases that would imply her involvement, no more visions at all; a few reports citing someone matching her description in random places of the world that never amounted to anything. The world, for the most part, moved on.
> 
> Skulduggery, alas, did not. Instead of focusing on rebuilding Roarhaven and keeping the other Sanctuaries off their back, China had to deal with his dangerously growing anxiety and restlessness. _Insanity_, as less favourable tongues would call it. After a certain point, she wasn’t too eager to argue with them. What had mattered, for the most part, was keeping him occupied enough to keep track of him and make sure he didn’t turn into a bigger problem than Darquesse ever was.
> 
> Which had worked, so far. Looking at Skulduggery’s tension, at the hope with which he approached this new possibility, though … it _does_ worry her. She can’t let the nerves show – can’t give anyone the opportunity to undermine her authority, her decisions leading up to this – but his reaction if this, too, turns into a dead end, truly isn’t a pleasant thought.

* * *

**v.**

Skulduggery’s hands are gripping the steering wheel so tightly Valkyrie imagines seeing the white of his knuckles even through the gloves. They’re not driving. He doesn’t say anything. He just … _frowns_. Intently.

“So,” Valkyrie attempts to get his attention. “Do you want to tell me what the point of that was?”

His head turns towards her, but by the way his eyes are shifting she knows he’s looking for something else somewhere in his mind. “The point of what?” is his unusually direct and distracted response. _Usually_, if he really didn’t want her to know, he would have come up with an elaborate ramble to distract her. That strategy hasn’t worked in years, mind you, if it ever really did; but she thinks it’s cute, so she lets him get away with it a solid half of the time. He gets to the point on his own, eventually. It’s about _space_, she learned in therapy, and _trust_, and–

This is all getting rather unsettling, so Valkyrie copes by being annoyed instead. “The point of haggling with China over a book we don’t need for a spell we can’t use in a case you haven’t mentioned since breakfast.”

“I can’t remember.”

“You can’t remember the point?”

“I can’t remember the spell. Not all of it.”

If she didn’t know better, Valkyrie would mistake his tone for slightly panicked.

“I mean, you were the one who insisted you didn’t need to write it down.”

The look he gives her is positively crestfallen.

Maybe it _is_ time to worry now, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> consistent pov? tone? timeline without shitty backstory inserts? what’s that?
> 
> besides my questionable style experiments, alt!val protested being a voiceless semi-suspicious prop, which is fair tbh, so … that’s a whole subplot now. the eventual resolution hasn’t changed but i might flip how we get there and i’m giving it another chapter to play itself out, so we’ll see how that goes. (and how long it takes. oops.)

**Author's Note:**

> title of le mysteriösé book taken from a 2 minutes google translation of "Spellbook of the Lost and Found", which is a fantasy YA book by Moïra Fowley-Doyle. it’s everything we wanted sp to be. go check it out.
> 
> also yes i’m aware that there was a whole bit about sensitives not being able to get behind skug’s consciousness in canon, but this is my sandbox now, and i elect to ignore what i don’t like. dreary lubbock certainly does the same.


End file.
